Second Attendance
Puck attacked my back with complete zest that morning, still hard on the floor:
“WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!”
I had expected it. He only tackled me two more times before I actually woke up and helped Mom with the first round of bacon. Francis, of course, found himself in trouble with the girls for consuming 5/6th of the second batch.
A little before ten, Irish and I got ourselves on the road for the game. No matter how early we leave, we’ll never be first in line. It didn’t matter that morning anyway. Already, hordes of school children were flocked, waiting like seagulls by the dugout, hunting autographs. The thunder for WACHA! WACHA! WACHA! had increased to such crescendos within minutes of our arrival, that Joe Kelly encouraged the uproar with raised arms throughout this raucous concert. Finally, to ease their pain, Joe, holding a bottle of milky protein shake in one hand, used arm motions with the other to dictate and divide autograph assignments to his younger fellow starter. This temporarily appeased the nine year-old crowd of Sharpie-jabbing high-screaming youngsters. By the time Joe suckered Wainwright into finishing the job, it was an hour out from game time. Irish and I easily passed this time standing by the warning track. It was all too easy for Irish. An endless collector of mementos, she slipped a cat-face-shaped pillbox out from her purse, dipped a hand down to the warning track, and dropped a clump of red dirt into the box. I momentarily pretended we weren’t in the same party. But no one seemed to mind. Or rather, no one saw her. Probably that last one.
From our chilly shaded perch in the top deck, we crunched through a bag of cheese cracker sandwiches and Hershey’s milk chocolate treasures through the shut-out loss and large crowd.
Puck was waiting for me at the house, half a mini log cabin built in the backyard. He was still crossing his eyes at everyone, making goofy faces since he thought up the idea a few days ago. Carrie warned him what Dad always told us as kids, that if we crossed our eyes and someone thwacked us in the back, they would stay crossed. And Joe and Jaya signed the lease on their Creve Coeur apartment, within blocks of Rose’s current abode.
On the drive to Old Church, I asked Puck to try to remember what he learned in class so he could tell me about it later:
“Well, Mom … it’s just that, uh, sometimes my brain gets in the way and I don’t remember things. It’s like it’s guarding the gate or something.”
Before the children were dismissed for their classes from the small assembly, I caught Puck hitting himself in the back with his eyes crossed.